Page 94 of Soulgazer

“Tell me how you did it.” He goes still as I drop the flask, hesitate, then take his hand in mine. “You said you didn’t realize it was happening? I don’t understand.”

I study his face, taut lines blending into something softer the longer I look, until his head drops back and he sighs. “I was only thirteen.”

Whatever I was expecting, this isn’t it.

He takes a step back but doesn’t release my hand, locking our fingers instead. His eyes drift to the window as a gull flits past. “I was thirteen. And I was dying.”

“Faolan…”

He tightens his grip, pulling me to my feet. “You’ve heard the stories of how the Wolf of the Wild was started, aye? There once was a lad who survived three days on a patch of sea-worn rock by drinking the tears of merfolk.”

I nod, and a smile flirts with his lips before fading away.

“Nice story, isn’t it? Clean. Dramatic—even a wee bit heroic. Nobody talks about the parents broken to bits against the sharp rocks around him. The way he was blistered with burns, vomiting for days after, feverish and half-delirious. I’ve never heard even one version of it all that mentions the way he rambled about talking to a goddess for a whole week after they brought him back to shore.”

Faolan turns to me, and I see it in his eyes now beneath the laughter and quick movements—the flurry of activity and lore that make up the man I’ve married.

Sorrow. He is stitched of the stuff, same as me.

“You said…you got the ring when you were thirteen. Did this happen before or—”

“The day after. On summer solstice.” His temple dips as he swallows. “Told you I should’ve given the stupid thing back to your grandmother. But I didn’t, and someone in our…village caught wind. They held to the old ways—didn’t approve of stealing, and I’d got in trouble for it one too many times.” Faolan cranes his neck back, eyes squeezing shut. “We were sent away, with barely enough to get back to Da’s family on Ashen Flame. But it required a boat, and neither of them were sailors. They didn’t know to look for signs of a storm.”

Old panic ingrains itself into my skin where his fingers hold mine, but it’s dull. A memory of a memory, pushed so deep inside himself it’s nearly impossible to reach.

“The boat was too small, and we were unprepared. Within a few minutes, the wind blew us off course and into a patch of rocks. I’ll never forget the look in my mother’s eyes when the first one hit and water started gushing up from the bottom.” Faolan traces a steady path along my knuckles with his fingertip. “The sea swept her away first. She was screaming my…my name. Then Da locked his arms around me when we were thrown from the boat, and it was his head that struck the rock, not mine.”

I’m shaking my head, my heart threatening to split because it’s too easy in this moment to picture Faolan small and scared and so painfully alone. “What did you do?”

Faolan leans against the wall. “Watched the waves sweep him off the rock too. Watched their bodies until—”

His voice catches and I squeeze his hand hard.

“Until the sharks came and there wasn’t much left to see. Two days passed, and I kept hoping one of the…villagers would turnup. Change their mind and come find us. Or maybe the barkeep and his wife, who ran the pub I’d sneak off to? A fisherman, or—hell, my uncle, who was king at the time. Someone should’ve come, but nobody did. And when another storm hit the third night, a wave finally swept me off.”

His smile is flat. Cold.

“I was too damned weak to swim for it, but I tried. Then when my legs got tangled up in weeds, I prayed for the first real time in my whole feckin’ life—and wouldn’t you know it, I was wearing that bloody ring when I felt myself start to drown.”

Gráinne’s bone ring. The one she gifted him in the pub.

My jaw goes slack.

“I didn’t realize what the ring meant or I never would’ve let it get stolen, no matter how ugly the memory it sparked. But I held it so tight that night, begging for someone to hear, and when the soulstone began to form on my tongue, I clapped a hand over my mouth to keep it there. And that’s when…she just…”

Faolan rubs at his eyes. Starts to turn his back on me.

Before I can think, I’ve wrapped my arms around his waist. He’s stiff at first, enough that I wonder if this is welcome—if it’s even somethingIwant right now. But then he lays his arms across mine, and I drop my forehead to his back. Breathe in the scent of whiskey and wild as a vision flickers across my mind.

“It was her, wasn’t it? The seventh goddess.”

Faolan’s stomach tenses beneath my hands. “Aye. I couldn’t tell you now what she looked like—but her voice was like starlight. And I swear, Saoirse, there was no soulstone mark on my hand when I woke up. I thought it was only a dream.”

I don’t move as he recounts the goddess’s offer: double his life. The chance to become a legend that wouldn’t soon be forgotten—nothing like the starving boy clinging to a patch of stone. Thirteenyears of learning the currents and tides, the quiet places where magic breeds strongest, the hearts most easily persuaded using knowledge gleaned from sailors’ stories and the ocean’s depths.

Thirteen years free of consequence, and then one to collect the girl with ocean eyes.

“I said yes, of course, and she put the soulstone back inside me. Put me to sleep. When I broke the water’s surface a few minutes later, a fisherman was waiting to scoop me out. It was like I was a feckin’ saint, the way the village gathered once we were back on land. I was bloody terrified—guessed I’d just gone mad at sea whenever the vision crossed my mind. Then, as time went on and the mark didn’t come back, I tried to pretend it never happened. Focused on building a legend instead, serving Kiara’s court while building my own world where I could.”

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